The impact of microcredit on small firms in Brazil: A potential to promote investment,growth and inclusion

Over the past decades, microfinance has become a pillar of economic development policies. However, despite the great popularity of micro-credit programs, the results of empirical studies are mixed. Thus, more research is needed to help us understand how effective microfinance is in achieving poverty reduction, economic development, and financial inclusion. This paper contributes to the literature by relying on a unique dataset from one of the biggest Fintech companies in Brazil to study the impact of microcredit on small firms’ outcomes. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find that access to credit increases monthly revenues and profits by nearly 4.5%. We show that the effects are stronger for women-led businesses and less experienced entrepreneurs. In addition, we find that credit renewal strengthens the benefits of credit access. We discuss several policy implications from our results. In particular, the permanent availability of credit – as opposed to one-time/short-term interventions -- has greater potential to generate virtuous cycles of ever more reinvestment and growth, indicating larger gains from relaxing borrowing constraints in the long run.     

Impact of finance on growth: Does it vary with development levels or cyclical conditions?

Financial systems are complex and may support economic growth differently at various stages of economic development. This study of 90 countries extends the financial development-economic growth literature by using four proxies of financial development (banking, stock market, bond market and insurance), and considering a country’s level of economic development, on both a full and pre-global crisis sample. As expected financial markets have different effects on growth where the level of economic development vary. Policy makers should find that the insurance sector offers the most benefit for economic growth at all levels of development. Stock markets promote growth for middle income countries. Similarly bond markets promote growth with middle and high income countries. Some bond market and stock market results differed in the pre-crisis sample. Policies which promote trade but limit other areas such as inflation, government consumption and crises, should also support growth.     

Regime-specific impact of financial reforms on economic growth in Pakistan

This study uses and proposes a new methodological approach to construct a financial liberalization index on the basis of the dynamic factor model technique. The resulting index is used to investigate the impact of the financial sector reforms in Pakistan on economic growth. Using the Markov regime-switching model over the period 1972–2015, the empirical results showed that the examined relationship is nonlinear, nonmonotonic, state-dependent, and better described by the two-state Markov switching model characterized by the high growth regime and low growth regime. Despite the positive impact of financial liberalization on economic growth in both the high and low growth regimes, financial liberalization relatively strongly affects real GDP growth in the high growth regime. The results further demonstrate that transition probabilities establish an inordinate episode of the low growth regime. Furthermore, the high growth regime is relatively short-lived than the low growth regime. Among the other variables, trade openness and physical capital stock have a positive impact on economic growth, while labor force and government expenditure exert a negative effect on economic growth. Several economic policies are proposed and discussed for better functioning of financial sector development in Pakistan.     

世界贸易组织与中国金融

金融是市场经济的中枢神经,是资本运营的核心.中国的金融体制源于计划模式,资源配置主要靠财政,不是银行.在体制转轨中,面临着艰巨的改革任务.在金融实务领域,存在着五大观念误区银行只能国家专办;国有银行只能给国有企业贷款;贷款必须提供实物硬件抵押;不是积极"寻贷",而是消极"惜贷";只是单纯放贷,不是兼顾投资.面向WTO,中国金融的发展走向是重新构筑金融体系;鼓励发展民营银行;实行国有银行的股份化改造,促进金融市场的深化;扩大金融市场的开放,尽快和国际接轨.     

弱关系型民间借贷的运行逻辑与实现机制--以山西田村调查为例

民间借贷行为在农村一直普遍存在,山西田村作为经济欠发达与社会低度分化地区的代表,其民间借贷行为除了发生在强关系的亲戚朋友之间,以第三方主体为中间人的弱关系的村民间借贷也占据一定地位。不同于市场经济下陌生人间的理性行为,弱关系的民间借贷行为遵循着互惠与道义的运行逻辑,而互惠与道义的实现依托于村庄公共信用体系。村民间互助即仪式性互助与日常生产生活互助奠定了村庄公共信用体系的社会基础。     

Does financial development cause economic growth? Implication for policy in Korea

The causal relationship between financial development and economic growth is examined, utilizing the superexogeneity methodology. We use annual data for Korea during 1971–2002, during which Korea has experienced both phenomenal economic growth and a variety of financial liberalization and reforms. In our tests for superexogeneity, we find that financial development control causes economic growth, but the reverse is not true. Our empirical results provide evidence in favor of the ‘finance causes growth’ view for the case of Korea while rejecting the ‘growth causes finance’ view. The policy implication is that Korea should give policy priority to financial reform rather than economic growth, because only a decisive and accelerated pace of financial restructuring can ensure a sustainable growth in the medium or long term.     

论我国民营经济金融服务体系的构建

民营经济是国民经济的四大经济支柱之一。近年来,虽然民营经济的融资环境有了较大的改进,融资规模和融资能力有了较大的提高,但是融资难的问题依然是困扰民营经济发展的首要问题。应围绕构建多层次、多样化的金融机构体系,建立和完善多层次的资本市场体系,不断培育和发展新型融资方式体系,建立和完善民营经济的信用和担保体系等环节,构建起民营经济金融服务体系。     

科技服务业集聚、地区创新能力与经济增长——以北京市为例

结合知识生产函数和A-H经济增长模型,为科技服务业集聚、 区域创新能力和经济增长三者之间建立理论联系,并以北京市为例,利用1985-2016年的时间序列数据建立VEC模型进行检验.结果表明:科技服务业集聚、 创新能力和经济增长之间存在比较稳定的长期正向关系;科技服务业集聚可以促进地区创新能力的提升,科技服务业集聚与创新能力的提升又会共同推动地区经济增长;进一步发现,从长期来看,科技服务业集聚、 创新能力和经济增长都较大程度上受到科技服务业集聚的影响,即促进科技服务业集聚的政策措施亦可以在提升地区创新能力和促进地区经济增长的过程中起到较大的积极作用.     

扩大内需的潜力工具--个人消费信贷

经济增长的动力,最终来自于需求.西方新古典学派的消费理论为消费信贷的实践奠定了理论基础.发展个人消费信贷是启动目前国内经济的一个新思路,它在刺激内需、实现市场供求平衡、丰富银行金融业务、增强行业竞争力等诸多方面发挥着作用.个人消费信贷业务的有效开展,对于带动整个国民经济的发展具有重要的战略意义.     

Effect of financial development on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the overall economic growth effect when the growth in finance and real sector is disproportionate relying on panel data for 29 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980–2014. Results from the system generalized methods of moments (GMM) reveal that, while financial development supports economic growth, the extent to which finance helps growth depends crucially on the simultaneous growth of real and financial sectors. The elasticity of growth to changes in either size of the real or financial sector is higher under balanced sectoral growth. We also show that rapid and unbridled credit growth comes at a huge cost to economic growth with consequences stemming from financing of risky and unsustainable investments coupled with superfluous consumption fueling inflation. However, the pass-through excess finance–economic growth effect via the investment channel is stronger.     

The dynamics among entrepreneurship,innovation, and economic growth in the Eurozone countries

Economic growth in the Eurozone has been lacklustre over the last two decades due to increased global competition from economic players in other regions, economic and financial crisis, and political uncertainties within the zone. To increase the global competitiveness of the region, the European Union launched the Europe 2020 Strategy to raise the level of entrepreneurship and innovation, which are purported to be key drivers of economic growth. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this assertion is true. Thus, the paper investigates the Granger causal relationships among entrepreneurship development, innovation, and economic growth for a sample of the Eurozone countries for the period 2001–2016. Using a vector error-correction model, the study finds that in the long run, both entrepreneurship and innovation stimulate economic growth. In the short run, strong causal links exist but are not always uniform. The results reveal that Eurozone countries should indeed base their growth strategies on policies that promote innovation and policies that create incentives for entrepreneurship.     

The role of deficit and debt in financing growth in West Africa

Empirical literature on debt–growth nexus and deficit-growth nexus indicate that government debt and fiscal deficit could have negative effects on economic growth after a certain threshold level. However, the impacts of debt and deficit on economic growth via the financial sector have not been thoroughly explored. Thus, this study examines the effects of debt and deficit on finance–growth nexus in West African region. It employs empirical strategies that account for various economic and econometrics issues. Evidence from the study reveals that the impact of financial development on growth varies with the levels of debt and deficit. Specifically, the marginal effects of financial development on growth turn negative when debt and deficit exceed the threshold levels of 48.6% and −13.5% of GDP, respectively. The implication of this study is that the financial sector is one of the channels through which debt and deficit exert their influences on economic growth. Thus, an increase in financial development would not produce the desirable long-run economic benefits unless it is accompanied by a reduction in government debt and fiscal deficit. Based on the findings, the study makes some policy recommendations.     

行为激励、制度保障与经济增长

由于人类对物质财富的不断追求 ,探索经济增长成为一个永远不能穷尽的课题。文章选择了从经济增长的原动力的角度来分析经济增长的一般机理 ,以及我国改革开放以来的经济增长受这种原动力影响的实际情形。在此基础上 ,文章还把这种原动力与保护它的制度联系起来进行研究 ,得出中国最近一个时期和今后的相当长时期里经济增长与保障人们追求财富的愿望和相应的私有财产制度以及市场制度高度相关的结论     

Global imbalances and household savings: The role of wealth

Many claim that fluctuations in U.S. private savings help to create and to sustain global imbalances because of their influence on the current account deficit. To test this claim, this paper investigates the determinants of aggregate household savings using a panel of 18 developed countries for the period 1980–2005. We weave two strands of literature: the first strand from consumer theory, considering specifically the ‘wealth effect’, the second strand from aggregate private savings theory. The original contribution of this paper derives from the main explanatory variables of the household savings function: two measures of household wealth, the first a financial variable and the second a variable for tangible/housing stock. The salience of these variables has not been tested before. The model is then enriched with variables taken from the private savings literature. To find the best technique to estimate the long run savings function, unit root and cointegration tests are carried out, from which evidence of a cointegrating relationship is found. The group means FMOLS is used to estimate the model. The empirical evidence suggests effects consistent with theory: an increase in wealth negatively affects household savings. Furthermore, when important explanatory variables, such as government savings and population dependency ratios, are included in the model, tangible wealth becomes the only kind of wealth to (weakly and negatively) influence household savings in developed countries. In the U.S. however, wealth does not seem to affect household savings negatively, it seems instead that government savings and population changes better explain the decline of savings during the past two decades. This finding provides additional evidence on the issue of global imbalances, and suggests that the recent booms of the stock and the real estate markets should not be blamed for the decline in U.S. household and private savings.     

Does the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership contribute to regional integration?

The paper investigates whether Southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern markets under the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership (Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Malta, and Turkey) have become more financially integrated with the European stock market over time. The findings suggest that the Turkish equity market is moderately integrated with the European market, while the other economies exhibit weak financial integration with Europe, supporting the idea that the partnership appears to have no effect on enhancing inter-market linkages for these economies. Therefore, these markets would be good destinations for international investors seeking attractive investment opportunities to diversify their equity portfolios. Structural changes in the cross-market integration do exist, which may be considered as a guide for international equity portfolio diversification over different subperiods. In addition, there is evidence of an increasing trend in conditional correlations for Egypt and Turkey, to varying degrees, over time, notably during the post global financial crisis of 2007–2008, thus revealing herding behavior during this period. Overall, investors should be wary of the variation of equity market integration over time before engaging in an investment at the level of portfolio management and diversification. Policymakers must be aware of the remoteness of the current achievements of the Euro–Mediterranean Partnership from the targets set in terms of financial development and economic growth.     

网络舆情是否影响股市行情?基于新浪微博大数据的ARDL模型边限分析

本文基于新浪微博大数据,分析互联网上的股市舆情是否影响真实世界中的股市行情。在梳理网络舆情,特别是微博影响股市的机制的基础上,我们利用具有“利好”和“利空”含义的股市术语的微博出现词频（“热词指数”）,生成股市的“微博信心指数”。“格兰杰因果检验”和“自回归分布滞后模型”（ARDL）边限检验表明：在股市震荡期,早前三天内的“微博信心指数”有助于预测上证指数;“微博信心指数”和“上证指数”存在正向相关的均衡关系;在股市行情平稳期,以上的统计关联并不存在;网络舆情通过影响入市资金流进一步影响股市行情。     

SPECIAL ISSUE： REGIONAL CONVERGENCE AND COORDINATED URBAN GROWTH Regional Correlation and Spatial Spillovers in China＇s Regional Economic Growth

本文使用探索性空间数据分析工具研究了1988．2009年问中国各省区人均GDP的空间分布格局与特征,结果显示,一方面,存在着全域范围的正的空间自相关性,并且这种相关性随着时间的推移在增大;另一方面,局域相关也显示出中国局域性的空间集聚特征越来越明显。以一个表征市场潜能对地区经济发展影响的新经济地理学模型为基础,本文通过计量分析进一步考察了中国区域经济发展的空间溢出效应。经验分析表明,空间溢出效应是中国地区经济发展不可忽视的重要影响因素,市场潜能每增长1％,地区人均GDP增长率将提高0．47％,超过了地区固定资产投资增长的弹性值。当然,实证分析也发现这种空间溢出效应会随着地区间距离间隔的增加而减少。     

Macro stress testing and resilience assessment of Indian banking

This study conducts policy-based macro stress testing of the Indian banking sector and also assesses its resilience towards compliance with BASEL norms with the aid of an empirical macro-financial model. It uses scenario analysis and quantitative techniques to capture the impact of macroeconomic stress on the stability of the Indian banks by evaluating financial soundness indicators (credit quality, quantity and quality of capital adequacy). The scenarios are generated through policy-based shocks vis-à-vis other external shocks. The results from the estimation of the model indicate a cointegrating relationship between credit quality and key macroeconomic variables including output growth rate, interest rate, money growth rate and exchange rate. The results of the scenario analysis reveal that the Indian banking sector remains largely sound in terms of total regulatory capital adequacy ratio as per current BASEL II and even BASEL III requirement. The results also show that expansionary monetary policy impacts credit quality and capital adequacy in a positive and significant manner via its effect on the economy’s growth rate.     

农村正规金融与农村居民收入不均等关系的实证研究——基于农村二元金融结构的视角

我国金融机构对农业和农村企业贷款所占的比重很低,正规金融机构的资金供给远远不足。农村金融发展水平及农村贷款结构与农村居民收入不均等呈同方向短期波动,并存在一种反方向长期均衡关系。农村正规金融发展水平不是农村居民收入不均等的原因,而农村居民收入不均等是农村正规金融发展的Granger原因。目前,农村正规金融的运作对农村经济的增长缺乏效率,对农村居民收入差距的影响也是微弱的。另外,我国农村贷款结构与农村居民收入不均等具有双向的Granger因果关系,表明乡镇企业贷款额的变动和农村居民收入不均等是相互影响的。     

经济民营化和民营经济金融化:经济结构研究的新视角

民营经济的发展与经济金融化进程相互影响,是当前我国经济结构变迁的典型特征之一.民营经济为国民经济做出了卓越贡献,金融因素在民营经济发展中既有支持作用,也有制约作用."民营部门取得有限金融资源"和"非正规金融安排空前发展",民营经济除需要资金支持外,更迫切需要成熟、有效的金融制度安排.在经济民营化背景下的民营经济金融化将加速改变金融经济与实质经济的对比格局,从而可能威胁基本经济结构的稳健性和可持续性,所以必须慎重对待民间资本全面渗透金融领域的现象.